I’ve always found it difficult to be expressive. It’s how I got the ‘Robot’ name. But part of that is because I feel things so keenly and so deeply, and sometimes way out of proportion to what is actually warranted. So a lot of my management of my illness is tamping things down, moderating myself, taking time to breathe and think and consider before reacting.

And then there’s weeks like these, where there’s so much pain and sadness and grief, and I want to be part of that, and I just don’t know if I can access those raw emotions anymore. And there’s the fear that if I do access those, I’ll never be able to stop. Which is better?

The flip side of that is it’s really really hard to let go, even in joy. It’s important for my day to day life that I examine my emotional state and decide how much to express and how much to supress. But it makes unbridled emotion difficult to access. and sometimes, I really really need to access that, and it’s just…muted.